On its surface, the documentary Art and Craft is presented as a caper flick. Directors Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman, and co-director Mark Becker, follow a forger who’s been working a sort of long con against museums and galleries for the past 30 years. When first seen on camera, we’re introduced to a “culprit” who’s the polar opposite of a Thomas Crown archetype. Mark Landis—also known as Mark Lanois or Father Arthur Scott—is a nebbish, soft-spoken man who lives a quiet life in Laurel, Miss. A slow shuffle, soft voice and hunched shoulders belie his 60 years, and his unassuming personality never even hints at his identity as one of the most prolific and successful counterfeiters in American history.
An entertaining and compelling film, Art and Craft includes a cat-and-mouse component between Landis and two art professionals, Matthew Leininger and Aaron Cowan, who try to dissuade him from duping art institutions. But the film blossoms when it instead focuses on its engaging lead character, examining the line that often connects art and madness.
Landis, diagnosed with schizophrenia at 17, has combatted a number of mental health issues. Despite his illnesses, he’s clearly a gifted artist. His portfolio includes copies of Picasso, 15th century icons, Dr. Seuss and many more styles and art periods. His talent is jaw-dropping, and even more impressive is that he uses materials from local hobby stores, color photocopies and old coffee grinds to re-create the masterworks in his cramped apartment.
Surprisingly, Landis’s motive is not money. Instead, he poses as a philanthropist who gives the works away to art institutions across the country to honor his parents. It’s a hobby—a compulsion—that he can’t seem to stop: “I got addicted to being a philanthropist,” he says, adding that he has never been treated as well as when he’s pretending to be a rich donor.
We watch his escapades early in the film, as the cameras follow Landis into a donor meeting. Armed with nothing more than an ill-fitting blazer, a small bottle of Milk of Magnesia that doubles as a flask, and his gift of quietly spinning tales, he bequeaths a small portrait that he says belonged to his recently deceased sister. The camera reveals a Christie’s appraisal affixed to the back. The museum officials seem thrilled to be receiving the work—though it’s all fake: the painting, the appraisal and even the sister.
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